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Saturday, December 27, 2008

It's that time of year again! I think Christmas time is my favourite time of year for sure :)

We started off the season with an awesome Christmas party over at the Jenkins' house on the 13th. Jen and Steve had a fabulous spread which included a full Turkey dinner! It was a night where good friends got to hang out and wish Christmas Cheer to one another :) We also all had a Sexy Secret Santa gift exchange which is always brilliant and good for some giggles ;) Dan was thrilled to receive a Corona glass set and I (much to Dan's excitment) received a Sex Casino game full of outrageous Bedroom Games HAHAHA....The night was finished off with a group game of Guitar Hero World Tour.December 17th marked Mum's birthday, so Dan and I took Mum, Dad, Rachel and Alec out for a meal to celebrate. We went to Mum's favourite restaurant, Lapointe, and enjoyed a Seafood dinner with lots of fish and calamari! Yum! Dad picked up a new catchphrase which he uses at every possible occasion, "Pan Seared Catfish!!" it was an item on the menu, not exactly sure why it stuck, but it's hilarious none the less hee hee....Dec 22nd I spent my last day at Blanch Neige DayCare where I have been helping out Jenna when she has her prenatal appointments, I have loved spending time with Joshua and Zachary and will miss them. That morning marked a special morning as Jen and I loaded up Joshua and we all took a trip to the Dr's so that we could listen to Baby February's heartbeat which was amazing!!! As soon as the heartbeat showed up on the monitor Joshua just froze and listened intently to the baby. Very sweet :) I can't wait until He or She is finally here to meet :)Christmas Eve Dan and I spent the day with a hopper (or the snow-blower like thingy as I called it) we used it to blow shredded insullation up into the roof. Dan's job was to stand upstairs with the big nozzle thing and blow insullation, my job was downstairs with the hopper, lifting 25lb bales of insullation into the machine and breaking them up. With 33 bales to lift, it worked out to being 825lbs of weight lifting! Phew, great workout! haha. When we were finished we were covered, head to toe, in grey dust, thank goodness we were wearing masks!We quickly cleaned and dressed then headed out to Almonte for Christmas Eve with my family and the Evans Family. A Christmas Eve Tradition of ours for the last 20 years! I'm sure Dan wondered what he had gotten himself into as the rest of us sat around the Christmas Tree, like every other year, peeing our pants in hysterical laughter! But we can never, year after year, put our finger on what is so funny!Christmas morning we spent in Almonte, Santa Claus was very good to us this year :) We opened stockings and all our presents then enjoyed Mum's Baked French Toast, the only day of the year we have it. French Toast with Rum baked into is delicious!! LOLIn the afternoon we opened more presents with Dan's family, it was so nice to have his sister Josee home and her boyfriend Dominic! Primer loved visiting with everyone and was impressed with his new beddie. Dan and I then spent a couple hours visiting our friends Rob and Wilma and their little boy Aaron. He's seven months old and this year is his first Christmas, I can't believe how fast he is growing!! Back at Rick and Nin's we had Christmas Dinner with Rick's famous Orange Duck! Delicious :)After Dinner we dropped Primer off at home, after spending 2 days visiting with family and playing with his buddy Ollie he was passed out sleeping! Soooo tired! We then stopped by Jen and Steve's for a visit. With Steve driving his mum and dad home, Jen was home alone when Dan and I arrived and we interrupted her singing along to the Mamma Mia movie ;)Boxing Day took us back to Almonte for another Christmas Dinner with my family, Alex (Rachel's boyfriend) was also there which was great. His dad had made some Chocolate Raspberry Port, which we all had a small glass for dessert which was soooo good! Dan and Alec were so excited for the World Juniors, so they spent the evening watching the game while Rachel, Mum and I watched the sing-a-long version of Mamma Mia, which is great while drinking and singing at the top of our lungs! hee heeThe house is coming along, we now have heating ducts going into the new part of the house which makes all the difference. We no longer have to wear our coats and mittens because both the new and old part of the house are heated to the same temperature!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Another week has gone by and with it more construction was completed! This week Dad took a week off of work and came to stay with Dan and I to help with all the building.It started out on Sunday when Dan and Steve spent the afternoon taking out the front window of our house in order to replace it with a new one. It was definately a little chilly having practically the entire front wall of the house wide open! Now with the new windows the house is starting to look super! The old siding has been stripped off and has now been replaced with pink insullating foam stuff. We have started to already see a difference in how much better the house is keeping the heat inside with the foam on the outside!

The rest of the week was spent mostly on the roof, Ron the Roofer came over and we now have the new part of the house completely covered and shingles which is great! Today he brought his son, Benjamin, to help out too and most of the old roof has been re-shingled.Dad got to try his hand at jigsawing as he spent a couple of afternoons this week cutting out ribs from plywood in order to make a curved roof over the front porch!So this week, huge thank you goes to Steve for giving up his Sunday afternoon to come and hang out at our place working with windows. Ron who spent the week shingling our roof, and to his sone Benjamin who came and helped out on Saturday. Then a huge huge thank you to Dad who spent the last week helping Dan out! We couldn't have gotten to where we are without all the wonderful help from everyone :)Saturday was Jenna's baby shower to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby February! A big group of family and friends all gathered at the United Church in Aylmer to have a great afternoon of Baby Games, Delicious Food and to Enjoy Showering Jenna with lots of prezzies! :)Everyone had a fab time and we're all counting down the days until February! Josee did an awesome job organizing and planning the event and making sure there was enough food and games for all!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

It has been nearly a month since our last post. I believe it was the first day of construction. Wow, does the place look so much different since then! After 4 weeks of nearly constant construction our new place is starting to take shape.Currently we have the basement, main floor and 2nd floor framing all done and the roof is nearly finished. We're in a bit of a rush to get the roof all done because of all the snow we've been getting this past week. Even though it's only been 4 weeks I can't remember ever having green grass in the backyard or having a fence surrounding it to let the dog out. It seems to be endless mud and dirt piles (much to Primer's enjoyment).With any luck we're about a week away (maybe less!!) before we'll be finally knocking the old walls down in order to attach the new part of the house the old bit. Dan has been working practically night and day to try and get it finished before Christmas (we have 4 weeks left!). And even I, because of being off work during the week, have put my big boots on and been outside helping where I can...mostly holding things and carting things out of the way or just standing idle and watching the work be done ;)

Now that Dan and I can see what our house will look like it's easier to picture the rooms and the fun now is trying to decide on what colour to paint the walls...mind you we're still quiet a few weeks away from that! LOLWe both want to send out huge Thank-You's to everyone who has been helping us with construction! My Dad and Dan's Dad have spent many hours at our place helping getting everything in place and to help Dan move shingles and planks of wood. Our neighbour's and friends Chuck, Josh, Cory, Raymond, Eric and Pierre who have also been a huge help, especially when it came to lifting the walls of the garage.My Dad is taking some vacation time from work to come and stay with Dan and I a few days to help install new windows and take a sledge hammer to some walls! Thank you also to my Mum, who one Sunday got up at 4am to get a crockpot of chili made so that she could send it with Dad that morning over to ours. It was a delicious lunch for everyone at the house, it kept them all warm while working in the cold! and Thank you to Dan's Mum who provided sandwiches to go with the chili! they were super yummy and much appreciated!Christmas is around the corner and I'm still trying to weedle my way into getting a Christmas tree this year, I haven't had a Christmas tree yet since I've lived in Aylmer and what better year to start than our first Christmas together since we've been married! We started off the Christmas Season by going to Aylmer's Santa Claus Parade last night which was very busy but lots of fun!xo

Saturday, November 1, 2008

The past couple of weeks have been Halloween oriented for sure. In getting ready for the spooky season, Pam, Georgia and I paid a visit to Cannamore Orchards to ride on the Spooky Wagon Ride and to get the pants scared off of us in the Haunted House and Haunted Village they have there! I must say the wagon ride was a little cheesy, but the haunted house was very scary!! Between guys jumping out of the walls, guys jumping out of the ceilings with power tools whirring and guys hiding in the floor with scary masks growling at us, The three of us were terrified and came out of there hoarse because of all the bloodcurdling screams! But all in all a lot of fun :)

Wednesday Oct 28 marked the first snow fall for this winter, with 15cm of the fluffly white stuff on the ground it was hilarious watching Primer try to figure it out. It was his first encounter with snow and was a little unsure at first, but once he was outside we could not for the life of us bring him back inside, he ran himself senseless in the backyard, rolling and digging in it and having a marvellous time!

Halloween itself was on a Friday this year which was great because it meant I wasn't working the night shift so could give out candy to all the Trick or Treaters! I took full advantage of the holiday by putting up a few decorations, making Jack-O-Lantern cupcakes and carving a huge pumpkin. In the morning I paid a visit to my good friend Jenna's where her, Joshua, Zachary and I made some yummy Halloween treats and carved a pumpkin! Primer joined in the festivities by dressing up as Kung Fu Panda. We had to cut the legs off his costume so that it would fit him just like a big hoodie sweater. Once it was on, he wasn't all that bothered which was great! He looked so cute and everyone who came to the door loved his little outfit.

This weekend also is the beginning of the our house renovation plans. Bright and early and back-O and bulldozer arrived to start digging the new foundation which will eventually house our new basement! It's taken a long time, but we're finally starting and with any luck, by Christmas, we'll have the house all done.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Thanksgiving has come and gone and with it brought time with family and friends.My good friend Katherine is back from Holland where she has been living the past few months, so it was great to spend time with her and catch up with what we've both been up to!Alec and Rachel came home from their busy college lives in Kingston just in time for a huge Turkey dinner at Mum and Dad's house on Saturday. Ollie and Primer got to meet for the first time and spent the weekend running around with each other.

In the afternoon we all went up the Mill of Kintail for a hike and to look at all the Fall colours. It was beautiful and the dogs certainly loved playing in the creek and in all the leaves.

Sunday was Thanksgiving dinner Number 2 at Dan's Mum and Dad's where we had Quail and Cornish Hens instead of Turkey. They were delicious!

So a great long weekend was had by all and to top it all off there was a surprise dinner out that Dan planned for me. A great dinner at Kelsey's restaurant with our fab friends, Jenna and Steve. xo

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

I have been prompted by a few people to start a blog of my own, and so, without further ado, here it is! And what better a time to start then the beginning of a new month? It is the 1st day of October at 2:30am and I am sitting at work in the lab.

I am sure most of you will come to notice many blog updates may come at these strange hours of the morning because of my night shift schedule :)

So here is what is going on in October with Dan and I. Primer (our 5 month old puppy) has just been neutered and a great source of entertainment now that he has a satellite dish of cone strapped around his neck! He is however getting Cabin Fever due to his lack of activiy (vet's orders!)

Dan and I are still waiting on the go ahead to get started on the house renovations, which I'm so excited to get started and even more excited to get finished! For those who haven't heard, we're adding an extention to the house in the basement, main floor, and upper floor (can't wait for the master bedroom and ensuite to be completed!!!)